Becoming Frozen Read online

  Emily positioned Geoff in front and me in the middle so she could sit in the back and steer the heavy boat with an external rudder. She instructed us to simply paddle straight on alternating sides of the boat to propel it forward. We launched in the harbor and started plying our way through a narrow alley separating skyscraper-like ships. I had only visited the small harbor on the Homer Spit, which housed private fishing boats and other small crafts. The main port, by contrast, was populated by hulking barges coated in rust and grime. I thought nervously about what might happen if any of these building-sized ships fired up its engines and pulled into our path. But at least the water in the harbor was relatively calm, and my Burton shell seemed to do an okay job of blocking the rain that was pelting my back. Waves rippled beneath the kayak with a soothing rhythm. Geoff turned his head and grinned. Maybe sea kayaking in October wasn’t so bad.

  When we arrived at the edge of the breakwater, Emily steered the boat toward an open entrance.

  “Isn’t the sea kind of rough out there right now?” I asked.

  “Should be fine,” she said. “We won’t venture too far out.”

  Geoff responded by paddling faster. We cleared the harbor walls, where the surf picked up velocity in sync with a strengthening west wind. The kayak bucked and bobbed, and Geoff responded by ferrying his paddle in attempts to turn the bow. From his river rafting experience, he knew to point the nose of the boat directly into a wave to avoid flipping.

  “Just paddle straight!” Emily shouted. “I’ve got the rudder.”

  We slammed into waves as seawater erupted over our heads, soaking all of us. Cold wind needled through my saturated clothing, and I could feel my fingers going numb. The kayak continued to rock violently, injecting an intense nausea.

  “I’m feeling seasick,” I lied. What I was feeling was terrified.

  “Paddle!” Emily screamed, just as the kayak lurched sideways toward the jagged pillars of an old dock. We’d drifted close enough that I could see individual barnacles clinging to the weathered wood. The boat plunged over a car-sized wave, launching another wet explosion. I clenched my fists and eyes, bracing for the underwater dive I was certain we were all going to take. But true to Emily’s promises, the bow shot out of the hole like a whale, and the kayak righted itself.

  “Okay, that was a big wave,” Emily giggled. “We should get away from the dock.” Shivering rocked my core and my hands went limp. I couldn’t grip my paddle, so I just held it at my side. Even fear had lost its edge, numbed by either ice water or resignation. I stared blankly through a curtain of rain toward the liquid gray horizon. Emily steered the boat farther from the harbor as Geoff contributed exuberant forward strokes. Neither of them said anything about the fact I wasn’t paddling.

  Although the wind still howled, the rough water took on a more predictable flow once we cleared the dock. Finally, my shivering abated enough to at least put my paddle in the water and give an appearance of effort. Emily chatted amicably as she steered the boat to a satisfactory distance, and then arced back toward land.

  The breakwater walls appeared much closer than they were, and minutes passed slowly as we forced our cold arms through the motions. Rain turned to sleet, and then clumpy flakes of snow. Geoff was visibly shivering by the time we returned to the harbor.

  “Probably the last time this year we’ll be able to go kayaking,” Emily observed as we hoisted the boat back onto her car. “Good we got out today.”

  Geoff’s car stalled out in the snow on the way home. Several more inches of powder had accumulated on Diamond Ridge, burying the tire ruts that we’d been able to follow during the drive into town. All we could do was put the car in reverse and slide backwards half a mile back to the pavement. We drove twelve miles around the Sterling Highway to try the other end of Diamond Ridge Road, where we were again thwarted, so we returned to town to purchase snow chains and a shovel. The sun was already low on the horizon after a long day out, and my fingers and toes were still numb.

  “I always forget about my fear of water,” I said to Geoff as we walked into the hardware store. “That was really harrowing for me. But you and Emily seemed to be having fun.”

  “I was cold, especially toward the end,” Geoff said. “But, yeah, it was definitely fun. I missed this. It was similar to whitewater canoeing, but I would have liked to paddle my own boat. We need to look into getting some sea kayaks before next spring.”

  “Sure,” I agreed, without admitting that I didn’t plan to ever again venture into Kachemak Bay on any craft that wasn’t a large fishing boat with a motor. Even during the summer, water temperatures never registered higher than fifty degrees, and submersion could trigger hypothermia in minutes. Our near-plunge near the dock pilings reminded me that all it took was a single rogue wave to shift a situation from fun to deadly. Winter activities were bound to present dangerous situations, but at least on land, chances of surviving the cold were marginally better.

  *****

  Over the next few weekends, Geoff and I directed the entirety of our incomes into battling the onslaught of winter. We acquired chains and studded tires for each of our cars, extra blankets for the bed, an electric heater for Geoff’s desk, and an outdoor thermometer. Geoff purchased a used chainsaw to cut down a few of the dead trees on the property, then sectioned them into logs to sell to others as firewood. Our cabin didn’t have a wood stove, and Robin wouldn’t permit us to get one, claiming she didn’t have fire insurance. The only heating source was a Monitor heater that guzzled diesel fuel. We purchased a hundred gallons to store in a drum on our porch. The diesel delivery guy surveyed the size of our cabin and told us that amount of fuel would never get us through the winter. But at three dollars a gallon, even a hundred was a stretch for us in late October.

  “We’ll be comfortable enough at sixty degrees,” Geoff told me. “Buy some more sweaters.”

  Autumn snow continued to fall but often lingered for only a day or two before melting. The month was gray with frequent rain, adding an especially dark tint to the diminishing daylight. By Halloween, the ground was covered in white crust that appeared to be settling in for the season. Neighborhood children surprised us when they donned Arctic coats and hiked long distances at fifteen degrees to trick-or-treat.

  The holiday weekend brought an opportunity to hike into a backcountry cabin near the northern edge of the peninsula. Light snow fell as we packed up Geoff’s Civic with all of the camping gear we owned. He pointed to a pile of eight summer tires that we had recently removed from our cars, now covered in several inches of fresh powder.

  “You’re probably not going to see those again until spring,” he said.

  Geoff stopped to buy fuel in Anchor Point. A sign on the door advertised free coffee, so I exited the car as well. Outside air caused me to gasp involuntarily. The temperature felt ten degrees colder than it had on Diamond Ridge, probably due to an inversion trapping cold air at this low elevation. A thermometer outside the door confirmed my suspicions.

  “It’s only eight degrees out,” I hissed at Geoff as I ducked back into the car with my Styrofoam cup of lukewarm sludge.

  “I’m not surprised,” Geoff said. “It definitely feels cold.”

  I nodded toward the frost-covered landscape. A chain-link fence, needles on trees, and alder branches looked as though they’d been dipped in blue frosting. “Are we really thinking about camping in this?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Geoff said. “We have tons of gear, and it’s not like we’re sleeping in a tent. Those cabins have stoves and an ax to cut wood. And anyway, it’s only like seven miles from the road. If we have any issues we’ll just leave.”

  “Seven miles,” I said. “Right. A quick little jaunt.”

  Similar to our sea kayaking excursion a few weeks earlier, I was anticipating some sort of painful cold-related death. This time my focus was frostbite. But again, the promise of adventure trump
ed fear’s empty threats. I swallowed my trepidation with a large helping of pride — the “I’m going to prove I can be Alaskan by going camping in the winter” sort of pride.

  We organized our gear at the trailhead and hoisted backpacks that together weighed as much as a third person. I strapped snowshoes onto my hiking boots and took labored steps across the highway. The backpack pinched my shoulders and its weight nearly buckled my knees. The snowshoes felt more like anchors than walking aids. Despite the single-digit temperatures, sweat started to trickle down my back. I was wearing enough layers to sleep outside in Antarctica — probably too many for a hike. But I preferred to take my chances with overheating in the micro-climate of my body heat, rather than solidifying in a vast freezer.

  Light snow continued to fall as we marched up steep switchbacks. The narrow snowshoe trail was covered in six inches of fresh powder. Geoff broke trail several yards ahead as I continued to struggle with my heavy pack and altered sense of balance. I stomped along like a Yeti, breathing loudly and exhaling thick clouds of vapor as I punched giant tracks in the snow. My overstuffed backpack swayed from side to side, knocking powder from alder branches. The landscape, by contrast, was eerily still. Only the hiss of falling snow interrupted a primordial silence. Blurred figures of mountains and trees, stripped of all color, flickered between the flakes. Everything had the delicate look of a silent movie, archived for so long that the black-and-white film was fading around the edges. It was beautiful and benign. I wondered why I had been so fearful.

  Geoff reached the cabin — a single-room log structure near the shore of Crescent Lake — just after one in the afternoon. I was at that point nearly half a mile behind him, nursing my sore knees and back, and vowing that I would never, ever gain sixty pounds. By the time I reached the cabin, Geoff was nowhere to be seen, but his backpack was propped inside and snowshoe tracks into the forest indicated he had gone looking for firewood. I dropped my pack and surveyed the area. Crescent Lake was rimmed by a wall of steep mountains above the U-shaped valley. A cloud ceiling obscured the peaks, so it appeared as though bald slopes dropped out of nothing. The valley floor was dotted with scattered spruce and birch trees, which faded out altogether just a few hundred feet higher. The lake hadn’t frozen yet; the surface was as flat and calm as a mirror, casting a reflection so clear that I could see the subtle definition of clouds in the water. Except for a blaze orange sign warning of recent bear sightings in the vicinity, color remained nonexistent.

  A chill settled in as I unpacked my belongings onto the wooden bunk bed. When shivering commenced I stripped down to my underwear so I could change into a dry base layer and fleece jacket. Geoff returned with a modest stack of wood. “The pickings are kinda slim out there,” he said. “Seems this place has been worked over by people before us. And it’s hard to find dead wood because everything is covered in snow.”

  “Great,” I said. “My sleeping bag is only rated to twenty degrees. Just great.”

  “We’ll find enough to get through the night,” Geoff said. “We just have to spend a little more time looking.”

  I pulled on the rest of my layers and returned outside to help him gather branches and other scraps. We eventually used the ax to chop down a dead birch tree and sawed the branches off, then dragged the trunk to the front of the cabin in case we needed to chop that to pieces as well.

  Because we needed to conserve firewood, we decided to spend the rest of the daylight hours exploring Crescent Lake. The cabin rental included a small aluminum boat and oars, which were probably intended for summer use. But only a thin layer of ice rimmed the shore, and the water was calm enough for boating. Geoff even brought his fishing pole in hopes the lake was open.

  We donned sun-faded life jackets over our winter coats and pushed the boat from its winter storage area in the woods to a small wooden dock. A shallow film of steam wafted across the surface of the lake, as though the water were hot instead of cold. Geoff arranged his fishing gear as I rowed. He chose a silver spinner for his lure. The metal chunk disrupted the glassy calm of the lake with every plop, but by the fourth cast he had a bite. He reeled in a ten-inch grayling — large by grayling standards. Geoff held the dorsal-finned fish delicately in his mittens as he removed the hook.

  “Are we going to eat that for dinner?” I asked.

  Geoff considered it for a moment. “It would be tasty, but I don’t want to have to clean it with my bare hands in this water.” He reached back into the steam and let the grayling slip through his grasp. I watched the fish dart toward freedom as Geoff continued casting his line.

  Sunlight escaped through the clouds in the late afternoon, just in time to cast its last gold rays on the water before disappearing behind the mountains. We pulled the boat back on shore and walked through crunchy snow toward the cabin. I noticed that marbles of ice had formed on my coat and pants. The palms of my hands tingled from removing my mittens to grasp the searing metal edge of the boat. Still, unlike the first encounter at the Anchor Point gas station, this cold no longer felt like an impenetrable wall. It had become more like a room, encompassing me as my body adjusted accordingly. Once I’d reached equilibrium, the icy breeze lost its sting, and chills gave way to internal warmth. This was a new revelation — that I could not only survive an entire day outside when the temperature was near zero, but I could be comfortable. My veins pulsed with life even as the landscape lay dormant in the quiescence of winter.

  “Like the grayling,” I thought. “Soon Crescent Lake will be frozen over, and the water below will be cold enough to stop my warm-blooded heart in minutes, but that grayling will keep on swimming toward spring.” I smiled with appreciation for that spunky little fish. I was glad Geoff let it live.

  Darkness returned by six in the evening. We stoked our small fire, warmed tortillas and rehydrated pinto beans on top of the iron stove. Geoff sautéed carrots, green peppers and onions on his camp stove, adding pinches of salt, cayenne pepper and curry powder — a gourmet chef even in the woods. I lit a few tea candles that I found in a cupboard. The dull yellow light and flickering shadows gave the room a soothing ambiance. Even though we were miles from a familiar space and modern comforts, I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so cozy or secure.

  “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could live like this all the time?” Geoff mused. “If we had some property by a lake where we could build a cabin, chop wood, catch fish and live off the land?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It would be a really great life. But I wonder if it would get boring sometimes too. Always having only the same mountains to hike, the same trails to walk, the same lake to fish.”

  “If you were really trying to live off the land, you wouldn’t be bored. You’d be too busy trying to survive,” Geoff said.

  “This is probably true,” I said. “I think that’s why I prefer to live the dream in smaller doses. True back-to-nature living would be extremely difficult, probably in ways you wouldn’t even anticipate. I mean, just think about how much time we’d have to spend chopping down trees and gathering wood if we wanted to stay warm all winter. Or how many grayling we’d have to catch to equal the calories in these burritos.”

  “Yeah,” Geoff said. “But at least it would all be real, valid work. Work that had some kind of tangible meaning to our lives — more than selling stuff to make money to buy more stuff.”

  I wanted to counter that my work already had meaning. Serving as a political watchdog and disseminating information to the public was important. But I remembered with amusement that the last article I wrote had been about a Homer resident who collected every single issue of National Geographic that had ever been printed, filed away in rows upon rows of shelves. That, besides being an entertaining but otherwise unimportant fluff piece, was also a perfect example of amassing stuff for the sake of stuff.

  “True,” I said. “But if you want to live in the modern world, you don’t really get much of a choice.
Either you participate in society, or you have to leave it completely behind. And there’s not a whole lot of room left in this world for people who choose to leave.”

  “There’s still a lot of room left in Alaska,” Geoff said. “I can’t wait for next summer.”

  Geoff had grand plans for the warm months, when he planned to put his eBay business on hiatus and spend weeks exploring the Kenai Mountains, floating the Yukon River, and embarking on an expedition across the Brooks Range in Alaska’s far north.

  I nodded. “Hopefully we’ll have a chance to do some exploring.” And by that, I meant that I hoped we’d find a happy compromise between Geoff’s long-distance ambitions and my weekend warrior limitations. Adventure, comfort and a functioning role in society — these were all pieces of my personal happiness puzzle that still seemed impossible to fit together. But I remained hopeful that Alaska would provide an answer.

  _____

  ’Til November

  November 3, 2005

  It’s mid-November, and the weather reflects it. A steady drizzle of rain hits the snow like acid, pooling in pockmarks and emerging in gray streams of slush on the city streets. Evening approaches and everything is gray, monotone, shadowless, as you’re driving toward the spit with a camera that has only one shot left on it. You’re heading due south on the narrow strip of land, so you scarcely notice sunlight slipping below the clouds and emerging through a thin sliver of clear sky to the west. You don’t have time to notice because the change is instantaneous anyway — as sudden as a camera flash, the distant shoreline erupts in a magnetic shade of turquoise you never even imagined existed in nature. It startles you so much that you pull over that second, like one of those tourists who just spotted the backside of a bear, and you get out of your car, and take that one picture. Then, when you look at the image reflected on the tiny camera screen, washed of all its color and surprise, it almost breaks your heart, but not quite.